


August and Everything After

by pauraque



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's put right, and what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August and Everything After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BethCGPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethCGPhoenix/gifts).



> OMG, this prompt! I thought I was the only one who always wondered what happened to the people Sam leaped into after he was gone. I was so excited when I saw your prompt, I had to write it even though there were only a couple of hours left before the archive closed, so please forgive any errors. I hope you have an awesome Yuletide!
> 
> Content notes: Reference to past suicidal thoughts (not acted on).

Dr. Ricci is an unsmiling woman who rarely looks up from her clipboard.

"Do you have any family history of neurological problems?" she asks.

"Not that I know of." Alice twines her fingers together, legs swinging off the edge of the exam table. "Well, actually— My grandfather had Alzheimer's, but he was in his 90s by then." She looks at the doctor nervously, searching her face for any sign of how worried she should be, but she just writes on her clipboard again.

"And when did your memory loss start?"

"Last summer, when my daughter..." Alice draws a breath, feeling the tightness in her chest as she always does when she remembers it. "My daughter was in an accident. She was in the hospital for a long time, but I only remember little bits and pieces of it. And some of it, I'm not sure if I remember, or if I just think I remember, from other people telling me..."

Dr. Ricci looks at her with blank disbelief. "So this is trauma-related?"

"I— I don't know," Alice stammers, taken aback. "Maybe. What does that mean?"

"Well, it means it's not neurological," Dr. Ricci states with an edge of a reproving tone, setting her clipboard aside.

*

Alice stands in front of her bathroom sink, looking at herself in the mirror. She sometimes finds herself getting stuck looking at herself this way, eyes strangely drawn to the curls of her hair, the soft line of her jaw. It isn't vanity, but a fascination she can't name, as though she expects to see someone else looking back.

Laurel comes in and puts the hair dryer up on the shelf, glancing at Alice curiously. "Mom?"

Startled out of her reverie, she tries to smooth out the surprise on her face, but she hears her voice come out strained and too high. "What's that, honey?"

A hint of worry in Laurel's eyes is quickly replaced by a wry smirk. "You were like, staring at yourself. You're such a space cadet." She rolls her eyes and leans in to give Alice a quick kiss on the cheek.

*

Dr. Rodriguez is a slight, birdlike woman with a kind face. At their first session, she tells Alice to just call her Nadia.

"I'm not really sure how to describe it," Alice says. She sits up straight on the couch and her gaze flits around the room — a Mondrian print on the wall, the coffee mug on the desk. "I just can't remember things that I know must have happened, and what I do remember, it's like... like I wasn't really there."

"Like watching yourself in a movie?" Nadia suggests, head tilted inquisitively to the side.

Alice shakes her head, mouth open, thoughts refusing to coalesce into words. "I... maybe? Not really. I'm sorry, I feel like I'm being so vague." A nervous laugh, aware that she is looking at Nadia almost pleadingly. "This probably all sounds pretty crazy."

"Not at all. Seeing your daughter in a hospital bed, knowing she could have died... that can be traumatic for a parent. Something like that could activate all kinds of defense mechanisms."

Alice relaxes a little at that, but she isn't sure she really believes it.

*

In Alice's dreams, she remembers a cool blue room with a glass table, and a man who brought her turkey sandwiches and wore a tired, crooked smile.

She wakes up with her heart pounding, though not in fear. She fumbles in the dark and flips on the lamp, blinding herself. Finds a pen and tries to write it down, but all she can manage to scribble is a few disconnected words before the memory melts into nothingness. When she is fully awake in the morning, she doesn't even understand what she wrote.

*

"I used to wonder if I had another personality," Alice admits, letting her head fall back onto Nadia's couch, peering at the ceiling. "Right after Laurel came home, I felt so disconnected, and the things people said... I remember one of her doctors asked me where I was from. I asked him why, and he said I was talking with a different accent, before."

She's still a little afraid to see Nadia's reactions, but every time she glances down, Nadia is just nodding or listening calmly.

"And then the car," Alice says, rubbing her forehead with her palm. "I got into my car, and the seat was all pushed back and the mirrors messed up, like somebody else had been driving it, but there was no way anybody had. I really thought... this must be what it's like to go crazy."

"But you stopped thinking that?" Nadia prompts after a moment.

"That's almost the weirdest thing," Alice says, feeling tears welling up hot in her eyes, but also her mouth curling into a funny smile. "It never happened again, so I guess if I really did go crazy, I must have gone sane again right after."

*

Alice sits in front of the TV, her gaze drifting off to the open window, where the last smudges of sunset redden the sky. Not for the first time, she feels like it ought to remind her of something, perhaps a memory from someone else's life. She remembers the scent of grass and the fragments of songs, and strangers' faces dancing maddeningly out of her peripheral vision, like the light slipping below the horizon.

Laurel flops down on the couch beside her. "Since when do you watch Knight Rider?"

Alice's vision snaps back into focus. "Oh— I don't know. I wasn't really watching it." She looks at her daughter sidelong, sly. "But you know, that David Hasselhoff, pretty dreamy..."

"Gag me," Laurel giggles, and settles down with her head on Alice's shoulder.

She leaves the TV on for a bit, only half-listening, but strangely soothed by the blue light flickering over both of them in the growing dark.

Laurel begins to seem more still than usual. Alice knows that stillness, and that it means she's going to say something, given time. Alice gives her time.

"You know," Laurel starts at last, quietly, "sometimes watching people drive still freaks me out, even if it's just on TV."

"We can turn it off," Alice offers.

"It's okay," Laurel says. "It's just, like... I used to think the accident was my fault. I felt like if I hadn't let him drive, he'd still be here."

Her voice is even, but Alice can feel a little quiver in her shoulder. It's so hard not to pry further, but she bites her tongue. After sixteen years of parenting, she's learned that sometimes the right thing to say is nothing. 

"I never told you this this before," Laurel says, audibly struggling to maintain a conversational tone, "but if you didn't say that stuff to me that night, I was thinking about— doing something that would've been a huge mistake."

Alice doesn't think — she just puts her arms around Laurel and pulls her close, squeezes her tight. "What did I say that changed your mind?" she asks, though almost afraid of the answer.

Wriggling out of her mother's grasp, Laurel lets out a shaky laugh. "You're funny," she says. "Like you don't know." She sniffs and wipes her eye with the back of her hand. "Where's the remote?" she asks, then, reaching between the couch cushions where it always falls. "I wanna watch Twilight Zone."

*

Alice has her shoes off, and draws her feet up beneath her as she sits on Nadia's couch. "I just feel like I'm never going to remember," she says. "Every day, it fades. I don't even have those dreams as often, anymore."

Nadia is nodding thoughtfully. "Whether you ever remember what you've forgotten or not, what is certain is that you're going to have to find peace in your life as it is now. Do you think that's something you can work towards?"

"Yeah, actually," Alice says, swallowing. She isn't crying, but she is glad the box of tissues on the table is there. "I think I get what you're saying. I've been focusing a lot of attention on what's wrong." Turning her head, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window glass, and notices for the first time in a while how much she and Laurel look alike — the same eyes. "I don't want to worry so much about what's wrong that I forget about what's right."


End file.
